Ingmar Bergman on Martin Scorsese masterpiece Taxi Driver

Ingmar Bergman on Martin Scorsese masterpiece Taxi Driver

[@bloodandbricks]

Imagine having Ingmar Bergman not only defend your movie from bad press but praise it using the words "highest artistic level". That may be one of the highest compliments a filmmaker can receieve from an old master.

[@dkelly26666]

One can imagine that Scorsese was over the moon about Bergman saying that about his film. Especially so early on in Scorsese's career. Scorsese has adored Bergman plenty over the years, as well. The feeling was mutual.

[@bloodandbricks]

@dkelly26666 There's a video of Orson Welles praising Scorsese for his work on film preservation and David Lean did so also. He also earned the respect of Kurosawa. I dont see how one could top getting praises from Welles, Lean, Bergman, and Kurosawa in the film making world.

[@louise_rose]

Yes, that was a very sensible answer and a great compliment from him. Bergman was generous about acknowledging good film-making when he saw it, and he could be very clear about admitting his *own* shortcomings (the brllliant 1970 interview book "Bergman on Bergman" is packed with examples of both of these, its an extremely funny, sharp and illuminating book with three insightful and alert film critics grilling the Master about his career and his movies, and Bergman opening up about what he tried for, his experiences on set, where he thinks he failed, his actors and so on). He became more guarded with interviewers as he grew older.

[@R.Kinney1492]

​@@bloodandbricks Martins Masters. 🎥

[@maicolc7216]

He comes across as honest, intelligent and artistic.

[@nanny287]

Yes, he was all those things. He was so gifted, with a host of special artistic abilities and talents.

[@TraitofSiNN727]

3 of my favorite directors that influenced me to go into film school.. Ingmar Bergman, Martin Scorsese and Orson Welles.

[@drg538]

3 Masters indeed Sir

[@23Skeetoo]

Absolutely. People are responsible for their own actions; blaming it on a movie is no excuse.

[@louise_rose]

I didn't realize before that this had even been a discussion topic in the US over the movie, though I know some people have claimed that Jodie Fosters breakthrough role was a bit problematic (her eight years older sister body doubled for her in the most charged scenes)

[@abirbhabmaitra7905]

Absolutely wonderfully described.

[@DigitalMafiaTalkies]

Thank you, please do subscribe our channel

[@baruyero]

Ingmar Bergman the greatest filmmaker of all times. I will always be grateful for his art.

[@General_Puffball]

Bobbie Wygant seems to have interviewed just about everyone!

[@Elelyoneleven]

"So Mister Bergman could you please shit on Martin Scorsese for us? That would make a great story for us" Bergman: How about no?

[@jon8004]

She wasn’t encouraging him to answer one way or the other. Don’t presume.

[@schizvoid8774]

@@jon8004she was being sneaky about it by starting off mentioning the Reagan assassination attempt she knew what she was looking for.don’t be dumb

[@jon8004]

@@schizvoid8774 I've been a reporter for two decades. Sometimes you ask a question the way she did to provoke the subject. If you ask an even-handed question, you get an even-handed (and often less truthful) response. If you ask a question that seems to take a side, or if you adopt the position of someone else and phrase it that way, it can provoke the subject into a more interesting and honest answer. There are different interviewing strategies.

[@schizvoid8774]

@@jon8004 damn you where you were a “reporter” and you still can’t see it?what a shame…

[@jon8004]

@@schizvoid8774 Honey, I'm just trying to help you out here. It's a perfectly legitimate question to ask Bergman, no matter your views. We've both wasted to much time on this already.

[@motazgamesmovies3882]

There are people who uses art in the wrong way , well said mr bergman

[@YouzTube99]

Betty published her memoir, 'Talking to the Stars: Bobbie Wygant's Seventy Years in Television' in 2019 and is still with us (in 2023). Started her career in 1948 on Dallas-Fort Worth’s Channel 5 when it first went live -- one year before Betty White made her first TV appearance -- and has continued in various roles there ever since. She's a true television pioneer!

[@dwaynesbadchemicals]

Such awesome footage.

[@sarveshb834]

Taxi driver in 2 mins!

[@CannibalWHORE22]

Bergman was so naturally himself, while many filmmakers in his time were pretentious, he always had a warmth about him and he always spoke truth if he didn’t care for a movie or filmmaker also if he loved the film never held back on his enthusiasm.

[@louise_rose]

Very true - I think he became more guarded with the media and with journalists in his older years though. By the 1990s he was seen as a somewhat difficult and controlling person to interview, much less open and exuberant than he had used to be. I think the accusations of dodgy accounting and tax evasion that hit him in 1976 and which actually led to him going into professional exile, mostly, for the next five years, and the media circus around that, hit him badly and made him much more suspicious of journalists (he was ultimately cleared of all allegations of tax evasion). After that point, he was less willing to engage in open interviews at ease - though instead he wrote a very outspoken book of memoirs.

[@billyblim1213]

They should make Taxi Driver 2 but with a better boss battle.

[@999titu]

The greatest director of all times talking about one of the top 5 most greatest directors of all times. Ingmar is 1st and Scorsese is one of the top 5.

[@BobSaint]

Are we really ranking the directors now? Is that how you believe art goes, like some sports chart?

[@cinemaspace2890]

Scorsese is still not in the top 5. Maybe top 25.

[@999titu]

@@cinemaspace2890 why don't you name your top 10

[@cinemaspace2890]

@@999titu My top 10 would be my favourite directors, not the best directors, which might not even add Bergman. So it’s pointless. But if you wanna know 10 greater directors objectively than Scorsese then there are many! Well there's obviously Bergman, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Sergei Eisenstein, Billy Wilder, Akira Kurosawa, Yasijiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Andrei Tarkovosky, Stanley Kubrick. And that's just from top of my head right now. You can find many more directors who are considered greater than Scorsese objectively. But yes, Scorsese is one of the greatest directors too. But not in that high spot.

[@999titu]

@@cinemaspace2890 Hitchcock was a joker

[@hvegel]

I second Mr. Bergman's opinion, but curious if he'd still consider it high art, how violence is so often wielded within Scorsese's later work such as Goodfellas, The Departed, etc

[@comedyriff5231]

Yeah, the violence in those movies are more "pornographic", in the sense it´s there to look cool, to please some primitive fascination we humans have with it.

[@hvegel]

@@comedyriff5231 i think you nailed it

[@chrisbirch4150]

​@@comedyriff5231It's hard to say when the stuff is supposed to be non fiction. A head in a vice seems like pornographic violence but if it really did happen maybe it is necessary to shove it in the viewer's face. Pesci's death in Casino was also pretty brutal, but maybe it was of artistic importance to show the brutal consequences of living that life. That being said, I really don't know where you draw the line. The Saw films definitely felt like pornographic violence. Or 'gore porn' as they call it.

[@andresgajardo9273]

Ingmar ❤❤

[@eanayac]

Interesting!!

[@DigitalMafiaTalkies]

Thank You. Do share the content with your friends

[@johngraves6878]

Well, he didn't say "masterpiece" but he did say "highest artistic level."

[@marijamihailova7627]

The second has more value.

[@carlos9857]

Chapeau!

[@johnszczerba9979]

So the media was doing this even back then? Wtf

[@jhutch9]

He sounds like Janosz Poha

[@JohnDoe-uk6si]

Taxi driver is a perfect movie no flaws in it

[@drg538]

Genius commenting upon Genius …wonderful to witness

[@timmian85]

trickle down artistic merit, as scorsese does not like Marvel movies - just imagine how Ingmar would feel about them lol

[@boxonothing4087]

Someone who wants to bad will do so because it's always been their intention, no matter what they watch. Widespread violence existed long before movies and video games. For every lunatic going off the rails after watching a violent movie, there's millions of people who don't. Some people will harm others no matter what.

[@dellwright1407]

Yes and no... the research shows in the UK now for example that social media rap beefs in UK drill music do then go on to exacerbate a lot of real world violence.

[@lampad4549]

What is the differences between artistic violence and pornographic violence?

[@InFramesCinema]

I think the difference is that an artistic point of view of violence has a purpose, a meaning. While pornographic violence is violence for violence's sake, it has no end other than that, there is no meaning or purpose, it is banal, empty.

[@BandrewMacrew]

@@InFramesCinema Agreed, I think when he says pornographic violence he means perverted violence made to glorify violence or create gore/disgust. Artistic violence would rather be used as a mean to expose a problem, explain a characters actions or reveal something important to the story arc etc

[@InFramesCinema]

@@BandrewMacrew yeah, I think the same, your comment is even more accurate though.

[@t.c.eisele5262]

The same difference between a mountain lion killing a lamb and a poacher killing an elephant for its tusks.

[@marknewbold2583]

The viewer

[@JHaras]

As a linguistics student from Sweden, this is interesting from another perspective. The syntax of Swedish really shines through in Bergman’s speech. I don’t know whether Bergman was originally schooled in English. It wasn’t the primary foreign language during the time of his upbringing, and surely he was very fluent in German.

[@Phlandersstudios1]

På vilket sätt är det intressant? Kan förstå vad du menar en aning men utveckla gärna

[@louise_rose]

Yes, his first foreign language at school was German, it was standard in Sweden at the time, and he was fully fluent in it - he actually worked as a director in Munich for several years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, both a film director and stage theatre director. But it's true that his syntax here is coloured by Swedish, you can tell he is thinking in his mother tongue and then translating it bit by bit into English. At 1:00 he's saying "because I think it has nothing with artistic work to do" - this is a Swedish construction, with "nothing --- to do" (inget --- att göra) placed as brackets around the "excluded area" reference - the entire phrase is a translation from Swedish and a native Brit or American most likely wouldn't have said it like that.

[@ricardocima]

@@louise_rose yes, when he was fond of the nazis. ( not blaming him, just found it very curious when I got the info)

[@iamsheep]

She thought she could get one great artist to throw another great artist under the bus. Sorry.

[@Chinaski1]

I mean it could have worked. Bergman was very vocal about directors he disliked. He once said: "I much rather see Goldfinger than an Antonioni film."

[@ACD1994]

@@Chinaski1 Goldinger is such a fun movie. I don't blame Bergman one bit for that.

[@neilwiththereeldeel]

Amazingly, there is a 19th century puritanical nature to Virgin Spring, in which Sydow gets revenge then begs God for forgiveness. On the other hand, one of the most shocking scenes of true violence in Cries & Whispers...I guess Bergman was being more tuned into the bloodier times ✌🏼✌🏼